Jeff Smith 2007-03-09

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

Here is a nice mix of Serge at his loosest and wackiest moments. This is a good mix. I very much enjoy it. What am I saying, these songs are fantastic. The piano, the crazy back up vocals and Shu Ba Du's. The horns, bizarre pre-rap off style duets, crazy strings. Songs about cars, songs about jerks, songs about bank robbers, songs about suicide, and, of course, songs about love. basically everything that's needed to give you a good time in music listening. If you are one of those people who fell in love with Melody Nelson but lack exposure to anything else of old S.G., and are willing to try a more fun loving out of your mind side, then here take this put it in your music listening device and have a good time. Go ahead, all the kids are doing it.

E. A. Jamieson 2006-09-20

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

You know how you supposedly shouldn't do that? Well, take a good look at the cover of this record - it sounds EXACTLY like that. If that's a good thing or no, depends on what you're into.

Thomas D. Ryan 2006-06-01

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

For those who are unfamiliar, Serge Gainsbourg is (was) a French songwriter and performer who sang almost exclusively in his native language. Comic Strip focuses on pop material that he recorded between 1966 and 1969. If the age of the material or language puts you off, then I appreciate this opportunity to convince you otherwise. First of all, the French lyrics only add to the strange mystery of the music, while these songs sound remarkably contemporary. Imagine a pop song that consists of percussion loops and rhythm samples, recorded in 1967! The leadoff track "Requiem pour un Con" (translated as "Requiem for a Jerk") is just that, with a rhythm that sounds as if it were constructed by the most contemporary urban producer. Since he sings entirely in French, dweebs like me can't understand a thing except for the occasional American phrase that pops up - "Bonnie and Clyde", "Ford Mustang", etc.
Comic Strip can best be described as droll camp. Gainsbourg sings as though he were mocking the musical forms that he is embracing, giving each track a coy sexiness that permeates the entire project. In its time, "Je T'aime...Moi Non Plus" (translated as "I Love You...Neither Do I") was considered so sexy that it was banned in numerous countries, while Brigitte Bardot (!) provides guest vocals on "Bonnie and Clyde". Imagine Ray Davies as an ugly, sensuous Frenchman with a taste for the theatricality of lounge music super-hero Esquivel, and you'll get a pretty good idea of what this collections sounds like. Throughout, Gainsbourg's songs sound like a product of the ambitious sixties (which they are), even though he ignores what everybody else was doing. Simply put, he was an iconoclast who hammered out a niche that is his alone. Pardon my French, but Comic Strip has a certain `gene se qoi'. A- Tom Ryan

DerWeg 2005-07-09

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

When Gainsbourg was 'on' he could be very good; he could also produce the kind of terrible recorded pap that makes struggling new bands wonder how he kept employed. This CD spares much of the agonizing misses and gives us a generous hand of surprising hits that mythologized a true pop-icon.

Anyway, if Serge is forever a talented hack, a visionary who can't sing and coasted along on playboy faux-cool, well it is his ultimate triumph that he pulled it off. Chutzpah, the mother.

I like the strange little guy. He was a perv and a freak but he represented a certain breezy raison d'etre, and nailed various hot ladies eventually to co-produce Charlotte, a daughter as lovely and charming as... such a man could hope for.

COMIC STRIP is the one Gainsbourg you'll ever need - fun and silly and so very French. Good to confound houseguests who won't know it that well but will asume it must be hip.

John Dee 2004-11-24

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

Pop music in France in the mid-60's was in the pits, but it was exploding over in England, so Gainsbourg decided to do this album in London with English studio musicians. I'd say that about half the songs are good. It was the beginning of the "Shocking Serge" phase of his career; he started out as a Left Bank singer-songwriter who developed a nicely ironic approach--e.g. the "Javanese" album. Then he started going for high-publicity stunts, like "Je t'aime". If you can find a version with Brigitte Barbot instead of Jane Birkin, it's better: Brigitte really knew how to moan and breathe heavy. Anyway, while always denying he was out for publicity, Gainsbourg kept manufacturing one scandal after another into the '70's, like the reggae version of "La Marseillaise", or the song "Lemon Incest" which he sang as a duet with his daughter Charlotte, or into the '80's with his songs about S&M, until he became a self-parody. He even created a persona for this self-parody, i.e. a character named "Gainsbarre".

Anyway, back to "Comic Strip". Gainsbourg was always experimenting with new styles and when he picked a style, he always got legitimate musicians of that style to accompany him. When he dabbled in Brazilian music, he got Brazilian musicians; when he did reggae, he got musicians from Kingston; when he did Mod Pop, like on this album, he got English Mods to do it. A lot of it sounds dated and the lyrics sometimes aren't all that clever, but I guess that's part of the reason there is Gainsbourg mania in the U.S.; good lounge music has to be at least somewhat stylistically passe.